


Cerberus

by LaFlashdrive



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: 2nd person Villanelle POV, Dark Eve, F/F, Post Season 3, family fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaFlashdrive/pseuds/LaFlashdrive
Summary: Irina is hired by The 12 to track down and kill Villanelle.Eve and Villanelle adopt her instead.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 17
Kudos: 194





	Cerberus

You always knew The 12 would come after you eventually. You just didn’t think it would look like Irina breaking and entering through the living room window of your Airbnb at seven o’clock on a Thursday evening.

“Really?” you ask. You stopped in the middle of shaving to put on pants and race downstairs for this? “The 12 sent _you_?”

Standing beside you, Eve is equally perplexed. The door to her drawing room is still swinging behind her. Charcoal dusts her fingers. “I thought they were called The 12 because there were a dozen of them, not because they employed 12 year olds.”

“I’m 14,” Irina is quick to remind the both of you.

Eve crosses her arms. She’s about as impressed with that defense as you were the first time you heard it. “What are you doing here?”

You want to know the answer too, but you’re a bit distracted by the shards of broken glass scattered around Irina’s Converse. You’re doing the mental math of how much the window will cost to replace when the owner of this Airbnb comes back from his vacation, and you really can’t afford to waste the money.

“I’m here to kill Villanelle.”

Looks like you and Eve might have to leave Liverpool before the owner comes back after all. At least that’s some good news. You hated doing the accent anyway.

“Why would you want to do that?” you ask.

“Helene wants me to.”

The name stirs something inside of you. Anger or desire or maybe both. It’s the arousal of a score left unsettled, a challenge left unanswered.

“Who’s Helene?” Eve asks you.

“A woman who thinks she can hire a 12 year old to replace me.”

“A 14 year old.”

“A child.” An improperly trained child. Open windows are sneaky. Broken windows are not. No one’s even taught the kid how to pick a lock yet.

“Helene says I’m good. Better than a lot of the older assassins. She says I’m going to be her bodyguard.”

You scoff. You’ve heard that one before. “I didn’t know bodyguards did contract kills.”

“I’m working my way up. She gave me two targets. Did she ever trust that with you?”

Irina’s hand slips into the pocket of her torn jeans. You wonder if she bought them like that or if they ripped as she climbed through the jagged remains of your window. She brandishes a switchblade and flicks the knife free with delicate ease.

You bend down in turn and grab a hefty splinter of glass at your feet. A tiny bit of shaving cream has soaked into the folded pant cuff around your ankle.

“You can try to stab me,” you tell her, “but I’m not going to let you hurt Eve.”

Irina’s eyes flick down from your gaze to meet Eve’s. She and Eve are the same height, on the same level. “She’s not my target.”

Eve relaxes. You want to, but she might be lying, so you don’t.

“Who is your target?” Eve asks, ever the detective.

“Some police officer. I’m going to kill him after her.”

“This isn’t a movie,” you say. “You’re not supposed to tell your victims the plan. You’re just supposed to kill them.”

Irina takes offense. Her knuckles pale around the blade’s handle.

You take a step forward, but Eve’s arm comes out to stop you.

“She knows that,” Eve says.

You’ve been on the run together for almost a year now, but it still surprises you sometimes how calm Eve can be in the face of danger. When you’d told her you’d killed the favorite pet of The 12 in order to escape and that they’d surely come after you for it, she didn’t hesitate to follow you. When you told her you hardly had any money saved up, she insisted that she didn’t mind and told you how she quit her job and lost her home and couch-surfed just to have enough time to track you down. The two of you were homeless together, and even now as something threatens the small semblance of home you’ve managed to build together, Eve still isn’t fazed.

“She knows better,” Eve repeats. “She’s breaking the rules because she isn’t going to kill you.”

Then you see it. Irina slips and lets you see it. The sweat on her forehead. The way her lip twitches when she’s called out. Eve is right.

“I am,” Irina insists.

“You’re not,” you join.

“I am,” she says again. “I just don’t want to.” Her hand wavers, like the weight of the blade is too heavy for her small arm.

“Put the knife down, Irina.” Eve uses her standard police de-escalation voice. Normally when authority figures try to use that voice on you it just makes you want to stab things more, but with Eve you want to listen. Irina does too. You watch the struggle play out in her eyes. “You can’t win a fight against her right now,” Eve says. “She’s stronger than you. She’s done this longer than you. You don’t stand a chance.”

It’s a bluff. You haven’t killed anyone since Rhian. You think you could do it again, if you had to, but you really don’t want that necessity to be her.

“Why do you care?” Irina asks Eve. “If she kills me, then you’re both safe. Don’t you want her to kill me?”

“No.” Eve looks horrified. “You’re a child.”

The plea breaks something in Irina. She pretends it doesn’t.

“Fine.” Irina softens, but only enough to lower the weapon. “I won’t kill you right now.”

“Promise?” you ask.

“Promise.”

You show her good faith by dropping the glass. It splinters into three as it hits the hardwood.

She returns the gesture, flicks her switchblade shut and tucks it away.

The small cut on your palm stings. You hadn’t noticed how tight your grip had been on the shard, hadn’t realized it pierced your skin. You ball your fist again to ease the pain.

Irina’s next question catches you off guard. “Have you guys had dinner yet?”

*

Two hours ago you and Eve shared a horrible frozen microwaved lasagna, and when Irina suggests going to a sushi bar downtown you start salivating. When she tells you she’s going to pay - to apolgize for threatening to murder you - your stomach has never felt more empty.

The sushi is bad and Eve particularly complains about the British technique and how west coast Americans are the only white people who kind of know what they’re doing when it comes to raw fish, but it’s still the best meal you’ve had in weeks and all three of you scarf it down. Irina hasn’t traveled enough to know the difference between good food and exquisite food, but with her budget you can teach her. God, you miss money.

“How did The 12 recruit you?” Eve asks because she doesn’t know how to enjoy a last meal and can’t help but pry. She’s like a curious toddler. Maybe she sees that part of herself in Irina. “Summer camp program?”

Irina glares. “They came to my detention center.”

“Why were you in a detention center?”

“I killed my mom’s boyfriend.”

You smile around a mouthful of rice. You try not to let either of them see it. “How many people have you killed?”

“Including him?” Irina licks the soy sauce off her fingers and holds them up one by one, silently counting to herself. “Eight.”

That’s fast-tracked. In your first six months with The 12 you’d killed only two people. One was provided for you as a human practice target during training and the other was a weapons instructor who was supposed to be teaching you how to shoot. You didn’t like him, so you unloaded a sniper rifle point blank into his face and waited for Konstantin to come collect you at the end of your training session two weeks later. Looking back, killing him is probably the reason you’ve never been a very good shot. It was a lovely vacation in Ankara, though. Worth it.

“Why would you join them?” Eve asks. “You’re so young.” She glances your way like maybe the words apply to you too. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re 14.”

“And I would have been in that institution until I was 18. Mom told me. She disowned me. You can’t get a good job when you’ve been in one of those places, and you can’t go to school without money. This was my only option.”

“Konstantin would have broken you out eventually,” you remind her. It’s the wrong decision.

“He’s dead!”

She shouts it loud enough that a nearby booth goes silent and glances over. Her fist comes down on the table, and a row of ceramic bowls clatter into each other, droplets of hoisin sauce leaping out onto the countertop. You have to put a hand on the table to steady the wood. The vibration shoots through you before it dulls.

“Konstantin’s dead?” you ask, your voice quieter than it was a moment ago.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know. You were there.”

Eve stumbles over her words. “Wait. When he had a heart attack?”

“When he had a heart attack and _both_ of you ran away without helping him!” Fire burns in her eyes when her gaze meets yours. Like she’s just remembered that she’s here to kill you. Like she might go through with it this time. “Helene showed me the security footage from the train station.”

Of course they lied about her family being dead. Your teeth grind against each other.

It’s Eve who explains. “Irina, your father isn’t dead. He had a heart attack, but he survived. The last time we saw him, he took his money and left. We always thought he was on the run with you.”

Irina searches Eve’s face, tries to assess whether or not she’s lying. She believes her. Something about Eve always screams genuine.

“They did the same thing to me,” you tell her, and that only convinces her more. Her leg bounces under the table. You can hear her sneakers squeaking against the tile floor. It’s out of time with the droning mood music, the beats per minute too high.

“So he never came back for me?”

You can see her spiraling, see the plan forming in her mind.

“Forget about him.” As much as you want to kill Konstantin yourself sometimes, you know that it won’t solve anything. You mother taught you that. It was one of the only things she taught you. “He’s not worth it.”

*

Irina sleeps on the couch. You offer her the upstairs bedroom because it leaves you closer to the escape of the front door should she come for you in the middle of the night. Plus you figure you’re more likely to hear her creeping down the staircase to murder you if you’re sleeping uncomfortably on the couch, but Eve doesn’t want to give up the bed. She points out that the two of you will never be able to fit onto the sofa no matter how closely you like to spoon, so you give in.

Irina sleeps on the couch, and you don’t sleep at all. You sneak out of Eve’s arms once her snoring reaches its peak, and you sit at the top of the staircase in your pajamas like you used to do on Christmas Eve to catch Santa before you were sent to the orphanage and the presents stopped coming altogether. Irina doesn’t move. She doesn’t snore like Eve, and she doesn’t thrash like you. Her breaths are gentle and calm. The rise of her chest is subtle. You almost wonder if she’s faking it, knows you’re watching her and is waiting for you to let your guard down and go back to sleep, but then you see REM twitch her eyelids and you realize that you might be more afraid of her than she is of you.

*

Naturally, the first thing you do in the morning is judge the wrinkled outfit she slept in. The ripped jeans are only the beginning of the problem.

“You dress like your dad.”

“What?” Her tone is hostile. You certainly didn’t mean the comment as a compliment, but the insult is a bit harsher than you’d initially intended all things considered.

“How many nine year olds wear blazers?”

“I’m fourt-”

“Don’t the kids at school make fun of you?”

She’s quiet for a moment. She smooths her frizzy hair. “I had to drop out.”

“So did I.”

You take her shopping. She doesn’t look at the price tags because she has more money than any fourteen year old will ever need, but also because she grew up with Konstantin’s dirty money and his triple agent salary, so the kid has probably never looked at a price tag a day in her life. Your mom used to make your clothes. Then you wore hand me downs from older girls at the orphanage. Then you wore the standard sweat pant uniform of probably the same detention facility Irina was in.

“Where do you live?” you ask as she browses the racks aimlessly. She doesn't know what to look for. You can tell when she picks out a pair of cargo shorts. You fold them back up and bury them under a display stand of shirts so that no one else can buy them either.

“Avignon.”

“France? Spanish is your best language. They should have put you somewhere where you could use it.”

“I live with Helene.”

“Really?” You’re surprised. “With her and her daughter?”

Now it’s Irina’s turn to be surprised. “She has a daughter?”

“Is Helene home a lot?”

“No. She goes away on business.” Then, defensively, “So do I.”

It clicks for you. “You don’t live with Helene. You live in her summer house.”

Irina stops and pretends to sift through a bin of hats, but her gaze is glassy and dull, mind elsewhere. She’s sorting through all the lies she’s been told.

A pink dress with what can only be described as a feather boa for sleeves catches your eye, and when Irina sees you staring she says, “Get it.”

“You’re going to wear this thing?”

“Get it for you. I have their credit card.”

It’s a dumb risk. The 12 can track her purchases and Helene knows Irina well enough to know that she isn’t buying anything pink, but you get the dress anyway along with a new pair of jeans for Eve. As soon as she gets off work she’ll yell at you for buying them and risk giving away that you’re still alive, but you also know that she’ll try them on immediately and relish wearing something nice and comfortable after spending all day in her work clothes.

You pick Eve up from the restaurant where she works on the way to Irina’s hotel because it’s your car and you get to decide where the two of you go. You feel in control behind the wheel, and when you relinquish that power by stepping into Irina’s space you want Eve with you as back up. 

Eve looks at you funny when she climbs into the back seat, like she’s making sure you’re still okay, like you’re not someone used to spending the afternoon alone with a serial killer.

“Why the hell are you sleeping on our couch?” are the first words out of Eve’s mouth when she steps foot into the suite, and you have to concur. By the time you left The 12 the fancy hotels had started to blur, but it’s been long enough now that stepping back into one feels lavish again. Still, your excitement is drowned out by Eve’s, and you remember that she’s never experienced this level of comfort. She splays herself on the sofa and says, “I’m sleeping on _your_ couch tonight.”

“Hotels are boring,” Irina says, but she doesn’t mean boring. She means lonely.

You and Eve steal the embroidered bathroom hand towels, the coffee pot, an iron, a fountain pen, complimentary shampoo, and every single snack in the mini bar. Irina grabs her suitcase and what appears to be her most prized possession: a vintage camera that spits out film every time she snaps a shot of the city out the window of your car or makes you pull over and take a picture of her mirroring The Beatles' strut down an Abbey Road memorial.

She sleeps on your couch for four days straight.

*

On day one you make Irina drag a tarp in from the shed. You nail it in place over the broken window because Irina isn’t allowed to pick up a hammer in front of you ever again.

*

On day two you (Irina) take Eve to a classic movie matinee and buy her (with Irina’s money) one large popcorn, two frozen slushie refills, and three bags of gummy worms. Eve eats a third of it, and you binge the rest. Irina complains that the movies are too old and falls asleep in the dark of the theatre. You steal one (14) of her malt balls, let the chocolate melt against your fingertips, and use it to delicately paint a mustache under her nose while she’s unconscious. She doesn’t notice until she spots her reflection in the side-view mirror of the car on the way home. It takes her all of two seconds to realize that the cute teenage girl who was staring at her in the lobby wasn’t checking her out and was instead wondering if she had some kind of unfortunate facial birthmark. Irina lands two good punches into your shoulder before Eve pulls her away, still swinging. You spend a few minutes admiring the blooming bruise in the mirror that night while you’re dressing for bed. It may be the last injury you ever receive before she (justifiably) kills you.

*

On day three Irina asks if she can drive the car down the coast. You tell her that murder suicide isn’t the answer and that car batteries don’t belong in the ocean.

*

On day four Irina asks you why Eve has a job and you don’t. You tell her that you’re a stay-at-home mom now who works 24/7 with no time off and if she keeps running her mouth she’s going to be grounded.

*

On day five you wake up to find Irina surrounded by papers and files. Her laptop is out and she’s studying something as intently as she would be if she was still in school.

“What are you doing?”

She tilts the screen and shows you the face of an old man with unkind eyes. “I have to kill this police officer.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I want to.”

“No, you don’t.”

“If I don’t kill him, they’ll wonder what I’m doing, what’s taking me so long. I have to buy time.”

“Time until what?”

“Until I decide whether I’m going to kill you.”

The confession hovers over you. You wonder if you've gotten too complacent with her. If this wide-eyed child tourist bit is all an act.

“What did he do?” Eve startles you. You didn’t hear her creep downstairs, and you can't help but be momentarily distracted by her beauty when you see her. She’s still wearing her oversized sleep shirt, and the cuff of her shorts peeks out beneath the fabric around her mid-thigh. She has a coffee cup in one hand and one of Irina’s files in the other. Her focus is just as studious. She squints to read the page, and you’ll have to pester her to go to the optometrist to get reading glasses before you skip town again.

“I don’t know,” Irina answers. “He’s a cop. What didn’t he do?”

“Is this your first kill in England?” you ask.

She thinks. “Yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?”

It’s got everything to do with everything as far as you’re concerned.

“You’re not doing it,” you tell her.

“She has a point,” Eve says. “She has to do it.”

“Tell Helene you’re having trouble.”

“I’m not.”

“Lie.”

“She won't believe me. I’m good.”

You make a show of kicking her laptop closed with your foot. You shove the files into a messy pile in the corner of the living room with Irina’s camera and suitcase and Eve picks up the flurry of stray papers that fall loose. “Not today.”

*

You’re chopping cabbage for the shchi because Irina isn’t allowed to use a knife. She could probably scold you to death with the pot of boiling soup she’s stirring, but some of it would also splash onto her if she tried, so you figure that’s a more dignified way to go.

From the kitchen counter she grabs her camera and snaps a shot of the pot as it bubbles over. You watch her, judging. “What’s the point of that?”

She shrugs and fans the film as it develops. “I like it.”

“You can’t even upload it to Instagram.”

Eve arrives home halfway through vegetable prep. Late. But that’s not unusual. Sometimes the restaurant keeps her.

She leans over the pot of boiling carrots and scrunches her face. “Looks gross.”

“It is,” you agree, and Irina calls you out.

“Don’t act like you didn’t suggest it.”

“I suggested it for you.” You look to Eve and pout. “She’s really homesick.” Irina glares at you from across the kitchen island.

Eve crosses the kitchen to wrap her arms around your waist and to press her lips against yours. You love when she gets off work. Eight hours without her face and you wonder how you ever survived spending all those months separated from each other. She always kisses you hello. She always smells like dumplings.

But today she smells sour, tangy. Metallic. You know that scent.

Today the dark splatter on her uniform isn’t soy sauce.

“What did you do?”

She smiles and kisses you again. When she lays her purse down on the counter, one of Irina’s files peeks out from the mouth of the bag. “I bought you time.”

Like it’s a normal Tuesday night, Eve kicks off her shoes and rips out her ponytail holder. She starts to comb out her hair with her fingers, and you help her by threading your hands through the locks and massaging her scalp where you know it’s tight.

“I’m starting a load of laundry," she says. "Do either of you need anything washed?”

Irina opens her mouth to speak, but you stop her. “I’ll go get some things.”

You gather your new dress and the dirty clothes you know Irina keeps in her suitcase, then you help Eve undress right there in the middle of the laundry room. She helps you lift her shirt above her head and lets you undo the button on her pants. Your knees sink to the ground as you pull her jeans to her ankles, and you think this is how she was supposed to be viewed. You would gladly kneel for her every moment of every day, and if the rest of the world saw half of what you do in her, they would too. You toss her pants and her underwear into the washer, and you’re impatient as she starts the load. You want her right there, want to throw her on top of the washing machine as it vibrates and shove your face between her thighs, but she pulls you up to her, kisses you deeply, and says, “Shower.”

The two of you run upstairs, tiptoeing past Irina, and lock the bathroom door behind you. You strip yourself as Eve turns on the water, and when you step beneath it, it’s scalding, the way she likes it. You never quite understood, but now you think you get it. It feels good, like her hands on the backs of your thighs and her breasts pressed against yours. As your skin burns red, it feels like you're alive.

You massage the soap into her sore shoulders. You swipe your thumb across the stray specks of blood along her collar bone. You put your hands between her legs, and she mirrors you, repeats your actions and learns from them until you come together as one.

“Thank you,” you tell her, and she knows exactly what you mean. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“A small sacrifice.”

She lets you wash her hair afterward. You use the good shampoo stolen from Irina’s hotel. The bottle says she smells like cherry blossoms, but you’ve traveled enough to know that she smells sweeter than the real thing. You bury your nose in her curls and continue to inhale the scent long after the last suds have swirled down the drain. You make Eve use a different shampoo when she washes your own hair because you don’t want to be desensitized to her smell the next time she's in your arms.

When you pad down the stairs, hair wet and a change of clothes for both of you, Irina is sat at the head of the dining table with a steaming bowl in front of her. The spoon in her hand stills halfway to her lips when she sees you. Her gaze is judgmental.

“Did you guys just have sex in the shower?”

Synchronized, you look at Eve and Eve looks at you.

“Laundry,” she says unconvincingly. “We were doing laundry.”

“Gross.” Irina crunches down on the cabbage. “I could have left the pot on low, but I took it off the burner. You deserve to eat it cold.”

So you do, Eve and Irina sat on either side of you, and it’s delicious. It tastes like the opposite of home.

*

“I’ve decided,” Irina announces the next evening as she sits beside you on the couch and replaces the film in her camera. A news station fills the living room with the flashing lights of a police cruiser. The chief of police was found dead last night. His throat had been slit with a butcher knife, and his body was left in a dumpster outside the precinct. No suspects at this time, but the remaining officers are looking into past cases and recently released inmates who may have been motivated by revenge. “I’m going to kill you.”

Your heart skips a single beat.

“Just not for real,” she clarifies.

“I don’t understand.”

“We’ll fake it. Helene will think you’ve died, I’ll get promoted, and you and Eve will be free.”

It’s a child’s plan. “No.”

“What do you mean no? I’ve been planning for a week. It’s perfect.”

“No, it’s not.”

You rise from the couch. You leave Irina with her camera, and you get ready.

The switchblade is in the shed. You stole it from Irina one night as she slept, and if she’s noticed then she hasn’t said anything. By the time you get back to the house, Irina’s strategy becomes clear: attempt to turn Eve against you. They’re both waiting for you as you step through the door.

“Villanelle, what’s going on?”

When Irina spots the knife in your hand, she backs slowly away. “Are you going to kill me?” There’s fear in her eyes. You’re not sure if she’s afraid of you or death or what she’ll have to do to stop both of those things.

“Yes.” You take a step forward. “Just not for real.”

“What’s going on?” Eve asks again.

“A small sacrifice,” you tell her.

The blade comes down across the meat of your forearm. It drags, cuts. You stretch yourself to your limits.

“Oksana!” Eve’s voice feels far away.

The pain is searing, hotter than any shower you’ve taken with Eve or any pot of fresh soup you’ve made with Irina. You grind your teeth through the pain and shake your arm, let your blood drip and splatter across the hardwood floor of the living room. When you’re satisfied with the puddle, you clasp your hand over the wound, let the red soak your palm, and use it like paint. You pretend you’re Eve in front of a canvas as your hand stretches across Irina’s neck. The blood coats her throat, seeps down to the collar of her shirt. She stands there wide-eyed and frozen as you make a mess of her.

“Lay down. Act dead.”

She complies, sinks her face into the pool of blood at your feet.

“Get me her camera.”

Eve doesn’t listen. She’s already grabbed the first aid kid from the bathroom and unfurled a strip of gauze. She’s reaching out for your arm when you raise your voice.

“Her camera!”

Eve does a double take. Rationality wins the mental Olympics in her head. She grabs the camera from the couch cushion and hands it to you.

It stings to move your arm, but you sink to your knees, lift the lens, and close one eye.

The shot turns out perfect. Irina’s eyes are glassy and wide, her own shock of her death outliving her. Her hair matches the red of her neck. Blood splatter merges into the freckles of her cheeks. The puddle reflects the flash of the camera.

As the film develops before your eyes, Eve wraps your arm with the gauze. It feels good. Or maybe you’re just riding the adrenaline high. You smile. “I got it.”

Irina stands. Your blood drips from her earlobe. She takes the knife and tosses it to the other side of the living room, as far away from the three of you as possible.

“Give me a pen.”

Eve is too busy patching your arm to even think about following that command, so it’s Irina who grabs the fountain pen you stole from her hotel. Hesitantly, she hands it to you.

“Sorry, kid.”

You grab her hand and prick the back of her arm with the point of the stylus. It’s thick skin. You don’t want to hurt her, you just need a little ink. You slap the photo face down on the desk and scribe on the back with Irina’s blood, “ _Better luck next time. XO - V_.”

“Why did you do that?” Irina asks.

“Because you’re going to tell me Helene’s address, and I’m going to send this to her.”

“No, why did you fake _my_ death?”

“So you can be free.”

“But you won’t be! Helene will come back for you!” Tears brim in her eyes. You’re not sure if she’s angry or thankful or scared for you. You’re not sure if she’s sure either.

“Maybe next time she’ll learn not to send a child to do her dirty work.”

*

Eve stabs you repeatedly with the scissors as she plucks out your stitches - her own handiwork. It’s really not supposed to hurt this much.

“I thought you said you were good at this.”

“I said stitching reminded me of sewing with my _halmeoni_. I never said I knew how to be gentle when pulling them out.”

She pricks you again - you think just maybe on purpose this time - and a drop of blood bubbles forth. You may need stitches again by the time she’s finished. Next time you may have to do this yourself. You hope there isn’t a next-time.

This time would be a bit more bearable, you think, if you the sun wasn’t right in your face. You just had to fight Irina for the master bedroom with the balcony. The sun is blinding in Madrid, and you should have let Irina bear the brunt of the curtain-less glass shutters if she wanted. It was her saved up money that paid for this beach house anyway. Let her learn from her own mistakes. That’s what parents are supposed to do with their kids, right?

“There.”

Eve puts the scissors down and you suck at the tendrils of blood seeping from the wound. As shoddy as Eve’s craftsmanship is, your arm looks the best it has in weeks. The poor stitching will leave a nasty scar, but it’s one of many that you’ve learned to live with.

“Gross,” Eve says as she watches you lick your wounds. She bins the stitches and puts the scissors back into the bathroom medicine cabinet. When she’s finished, she lays down beside you on the bed. Her hair spreads out around her head like a halo on the pillow. You don’t have to pick up Irina from her after-school hockey practice for another hour, so you turn over onto your good arm and bask in the sight of Eve beside you. Your fingers play with the loose strands of her hair, fold them out like a fan.

“Did you ever want a kid?” you ask her.

“No.”

“A teenager?”

“God, no.”

You laugh. “Sorry I brought home a stray.”

She opens her eyes and rolls over onto her side to face you. Her fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “I’m glad you did.”

She kisses you and you forget about the ache in your arm. You forget all the blood you’ve ever shed. You forget the hassle of moving here and uprooting your life for the millionth time. You forget the worry of bringing Eve and Irina on this journey with you. You forget any danger you already have and definitely will again place upon them again.

You roll over on top of Eve and kiss her back, buck your hips into hers. “Let’s make another one.”

As her laughter fills your ears, you know that this is what it all was for.


End file.
